Pinocchio Read Online Free PDF Page A

dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee, dum, dum, dum, dum .
    Suddenly he found himself in the middle of a square packed with people. They were crowding around a big wooden booth covered with canvas that was painted with a thousand colors.
    Turning to a little local boy, Pinocchio asked, “What is that booth?”
    â€œIt’s written on that poster. Read it and you’ll know.”
    â€œI’d gladly read it, but it just so happens that I can’t read today.”
    â€œBravo, dummy! Okay, I’ll read it to you. For your information, those fire-red letters on the poster say: GREAT PUPPET SHOW .”
    â€œHow long ago did the show start?”
    â€œIt’s starting now.”
    â€œAnd how much does it cost to get in?”
    â€œTwenty cents.”
    Pinocchio, in a fever of curiosity, lost all self-control and shamelessly asked the boy, “Would you loan me twenty cents until tomorrow?”
    â€œI’d gladly give them to you,” said the boy, mocking him, “but it just so happens that I can’t today.”
    â€œI’d sell you my jacket for twenty cents,” the puppet said to the boy.
    â€œWhat am I supposed to do with a jacket made of flowery paper? If I got rained on, I’d never get it off.”
    â€œYou want to buy my shoes?”
    â€œThey’d be good for lighting fires.”
    â€œHow much will you give me for my hat?”
    â€œNow that would be a bargain! A bread-crumb hat! Maybe the mice would come eat it off my head!”
    Pinocchio was on pins and needles. He was just about to make one last offer, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He hemmed and hawed, he shilly-shallied, he agonized. At last he said, “Would you give me twenty cents for this new spelling book?”
    â€œI’m just a child, and I don’t buy things from other children,” replied his little interlocutor, who had more sense than Pinocchio did.
    â€œFor twenty cents, I’ll buy that spelling book,” cried a ragpicker who happened to be listening to their conversation.
    The book was sold right then and there. And to think that poor Geppetto was sitting at home shivering in shirtsleeves from the cold just so his son could have a spelling book!

10
    W HEN PINOCCHIO entered the puppet theater, something happened that triggered a small revolution.
    It’s important to understand that the curtain had been raised and the play had already begun.
    Onstage, Harlequin and Punchinello were already quarreling with each other, as usual, and threatening at any moment to exchange a barrage of slaps and blows.
    The audience was riveted, and they laughed till their bellies ached at the bickering of those two puppets, who gesticulated and traded insults so realistically that they truly appeared to be two thinking beings, two persons of this world.
    Then all of a sudden, out of the blue, Harlequin stopped acting, turned toward the audience, pointed toward someone in the back of the pit, and started yelling in dramatic tones: “Good heavens! Do I dream or am I awake? Yet surely I see, there in the back, Pinocchio!”
    â€œIt truly is Pinocchio!” shouts Punchinello.
    â€œIt’s really him!” squeals Miss Rosaura, peeping out from the back of the stage.
    â€œIt’s Pinocchio! It’s Pinocchio!” all the puppets scream in unison, leaping out from the wings. “It’s Pinocchio! It’s our brother Pinocchio! Long live Pinocchio!”
    â€œPinocchio, come up here where I am!” shouts Harlequin. “Come throw yourself into the arms of your wooden brothers!”
    At this affectionate invitation, Pinocchio leaps from the back of the pit into the expensive seats, then jumps again from the expensive seats onto the orchestra conductor’s head, and then springs from there onto the stage.
    You can’t imagine all the hugging and embracing, the friendly pinches and the sincere head butts of brotherhood that Pinocchio